A Gift

I took a rag, during a rag ceremony that was completely invented in my mind during a meditation in my yard, earlier this summer. I had a conversation with an imaginary friend, and he sat behind me and tied a black hanker-chief around my neck. The moral or goal of the rag ceremony was to not be too hard on myself. This is applicable in so many ways but probably the most paramount are the lessons of self love that surround my book and my disability. The moral or true underlying message of my book, Glass Slippers: A Journey of Mental Illness, is discovering the deep truth that in our mental health disorders and addictions lie gifts. That I am a gift, that I have a gift, and that what I create is a gift from God. In this way, my book has become a doorway to the divine message that I can be loving and soft with myself and my disability. The doorway or doorknob to the door of this illuminating passageway is that I don’t have to be so hard on myself. So, I have chosen this as my summer rag ‘goal’ or ‘message’.

While dealing with and processing rape and assault trauma, deep rage, grief and trauma surrounding being hospitalized and having an abortion when I was twenty and fresh out of the hospital, as well as around the facts in life that I cannot bear children and have a family, nor get a degree or work a career; I had some very profound and strong angels visit me. They told me about self love. They taught me and reminded me that I am gifted. They helped me see that my book is a divine creation that came from myself while being a true seer. As I have pulled through these last couple of months of processing these traumas, I have emerged a much softer being. I plan on crediting myself for birthing such a book into this world, and maybe even more importantly, allow myself and my disability to find their true home existing within the acceptance of God’s love as well as my own. All of a sudden, I can ask for what I need, and I can do and participate in activities that feel right. I can give myself the love, acceptance and respite that I need. Things can become challenging, but I have learned that they do not have to be as challenging as I have been experiencing. I have been making my life difficult my not acknowledging my true nature, forcing myself to do things that are too hard me, and by not receiving or accepting the love and praise that I deserve for my talents and work. 

I have noticed that when someone takes a moment to say something along the lines of “Your book is really good, and it is amazing that you wrote one,” or “You are a truly kind and amazing person,” that it is as if I tune out for the moment. It is as if I can’t take in these momentary praises that I should be savoring, and I literally almost do not hear the words that are being said. It is very sad. Another way to describe this plight would be that I just do not know how to accept a compliment. And this is true. I have spent my life up until now believing, that if I let myself receive praise, either form myself or another, that it will hinder me in progressing and improving. And I am so far behind, I can’t waste a moment in accepting or receiving this love in the form of a compliment. And of course this drives at the deeper issue that I was not accepting love and acceptance in the most fundamental way. I believed that I was worthless because I was ill. I believed my book was a shallow attempt at writing because I am not educated. I believed that thinking or accepting that I had natural talent was gregarious or assuming. But it is time that I let the message of my first book truly settle, sink in, and absorb. I am gifted. I fit the glass slipper. I can make the best of this truth and I can receive and accept it as a blessing. I will not be hard on myself as a daily mechanism, and I will also on a greater scale learn to truly love and accept myself, even praise myself for the gifted being that I am.